The U.S. is in the midst of a major demographic event: the de-population (DP) of a significant portion of the nation¿s rural counties. This study spells out the causes and ramifications of DP, explores the effects of DP on community banks in the depopulating regions, and discusses possible policies for coping with the phenomenon. It focuses on the relationship between agr. and pop¿n. density; the relationship between agr. and DP; the contributing factors of technol. change; and the commercial structure of rural counties and how it affects DP. Looks at community banks in the Great Plains, which is undergoing the most serious DP. In the U.S., 1,400+ financial institutions with total assets of $131 billion are in counties with declining pop¿ns.

First Published in 1998. This book aims to accommodate for the little attention paid to the needs of the people living in rural Britain. The author argues that there has hardly been an attempt to describe the impact of new machines and of new wage-levels on farm and village. The title sets out to answer two key questions: can the traditional pattern of settlement survive, and has depopulation in the truly rural areas gone so far as to undermine the viability of the small villages and hamlets?

Migration to the cities had been a part of European rural life long before the start of modern industrialisation and urbanisation. In the era of modern development, however, rural-urban migration intensified in an unprecedented way and many rural communities depopulated. While during the pre-industrial period migration had contributed to the economic and social reproduction of rural communities, it now challenged the continuity of the rural lifestyle. This book analyses the topic for the case of Spain, which in the twentieth century experienced one of the most intense processes of rural depopulation in modern Europe. The interaction between Spanish industrialisation and rural migration, the demographic implications of agrarian change, the obstacles to the development of rural non-farm activities, the rural problems of access to infrastructures and services, the role of public policy, and the consequences of depopulation for the rural community are the central elements of this study, which inserts the Spanish case within its European context. Distanced from both the anti-modern stance that idealises paradise lost and the Panglossian mood that welcomes anything that came with modernisation, the book explains how the adaptive strategies put into practice by rural populations led to a “peaceful surrender” of traditional rural society.

[Géographie].